EVOLUTION AND THE IIICilll'.R HUMAN LIFE 2S1 



Human prejudices confront us as a veritable jungle, 

 hemming us in and obstructing our vision on all sides; 

 and perhaps much underbrush must be cut away if \vc 

 are to see widely and wisely. Nevertheless, to those 

 imbued with a desire to learn truth, anything and every- 

 thing gained must surely repay a thousand times all 

 efforts to obtain clearness of vision and breadth of view. 

 With our perspective thus rectified by our backward 

 glance, we turn to the three divisions of human thought 

 now to be examined. The conceptions of ethics come 

 first for reasons that must be apparent from the classifi- 

 cation of the facts of social evolution ; just as mental 

 attributes and communal organization are inseparai)le, 

 so rules of conduct arise yari passu with the origin of a 

 biological association. Religion and theology form the 

 second division, which takes its origin in part from 

 the first, for these two groups of ideas are largely con- 

 cerned with the authority for right conduct and with 

 human responsibility for taking tJie right attitude to- 

 ward the entire visible and unseen universe. Uinally, 

 science and philosophy are briefly treated as evolved 

 products which include within their scope all that there 

 is in human know^ledge ; for this reason they take the 

 highest place, instead of the position below religion usu- 

 ally assigned to them. At the last, having reached our 

 final standing ground, we must look back in order that 

 we may clearly define the lessons and ultimate values 

 of the whole doctrine of evolution. 



Ethics is the science of duty. It is usually restricted 

 to an examination of purely human obligations, and to 



